"Google Image Result for Http: marksrichardson.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/thomashardy.jpg." Google Images . Web. 25 Mar. 2010.
Biography: Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, in England. He was the first of four children, born to Jemina and Thomas Hardy. Thomas was close to his younger siblings, Mary, Kate, and Henry. His father was a stonemason, builder, and church musician. His mother was an embroiderer and skilled cook. He attended church with his family, went to school to study Latin, French, Greek, and classical literature, he learned to play the violin, and was a voracious reader. He assisted his father with building projects, and at the age of sixteen was taken on as an apprentice to an architect in Dorchester, named John Hicks. However, instead of learning how to build, John Hicks allowed him to study Greek more than he studied architecture, and for that reason, his father sent him to study with Sir Arthur Bloomfield in 1862. Again, he allowed Hardy to study poetry and literature while teaching him how to be a good architecture. Hardy stayed with him until 1867, when he began to work as a full-fledged architecture. In 1874, he married Sir Arthur Bloomfield’s niece, Emma Lavinia Gifford. After a series of hemorrhages which kept him bedridden for 6 months he and his wife moved to Dorchester because of his illness. They lived there for two years before he built his last architectural structure, their (famous) house called Max Gate. His wife died in 1912, and remarried his secretary in 1914, at the age of 74. He died on January 11, 1928, of a cold. When he died, his heart was removed and placed near his first wife’s grave, and the rest of his body was cremated and buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
His first story, “How I Built Myself A House,” was published in 1865, in the Chamber’s Journal. In 1868, he wrote his first novel The Poor Man and the Lady , which was never published. Between the years 1872-1922, he wrote many literary works including, A Pair of Blue Eyes , Tess of the d’Urberville, Far From the Maddening Crowd, Winter Words, Human Shows, Moments of Vision, and Two on a Tower. His achievements include receiving the Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects for his essay “On the Application of Colored Bricks and Terra Cotta in Modern Architecture.” Two of his books, Far from the Maddening Crowd and Tess of the d’Urbervilles , were voted among the 100 best-loved novels by British public as part of the BBC “Big Read,” in 2003.
Poet's writing Style:
Thomas Hardy is known as the last Victorian. He is assumed to be a regionalist, a romantic, foremost a realist, and a brilliant but flawed poet. His writing style and personal philosophy are considered to be unique, exciting, and resistant. Over sixty years of his life, he has had an output of poems, short stories, essays, biographies, and novels. Literary critics and scholars have criticized him for inconsistencies in his writing style and artistic vision. The mix of sensational, irrational, and melodramatic elements along with realism leads to Hardy’s Victorian Gothic style. In Hardy’s lifetime the term Gothic was used as a reference to the architecture, which was an artistic work inspired by the Middle Ages. His styles enable readers to sympathize with character plights, accept more readily the plot, and understand Hardy’s narrative patterns. His Victorian Gothic works include discussions of problems such as urbanization, economic injustice, and technology. His poetry holds such issues as homelessness and disaster. Hardy showed human existence as a tragedy determined by powers beyond our control. A common theme in Hardy’s poetry is his realization and regret of turning away from the most important things in life. The tone is of deep regret with a blunt and straightforward style. He was realist who simply spoke about man’s senselessness. Overall, Thomas Hardy is considered to be one of England’s greatest novelists whose work resembles a Victorian Gothic style.
Goldstein, Norma Walrath. "Thomas Hardy's Victorian Gothic: Reassessing Hardy's Fiction and His Gothic Sensibility." Diss. University of Rhode Island, 1989. Abstract. (1989): 171. ERIC . Web. 25 Mar. 2010.
"Thomas Hardy Criticism." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 01 Apr. 2010. < http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/hardy-thomas >.
Poems: AT CASTLE BOTEREL By: Thomas Hardy
As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Distinctly yet
Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony's load
When he sighed and slowed.
What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led, -
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
And feeling fled.
It filled but a minute. But was there ever
A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill's story? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
By thousands more.
Primaeval rocks form the road's steep border,
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth's long order;
But what they record in colour and cast
Is - that we two passed.
And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
Saw us alight.
I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old love's domain
Never again.
THE VOICE by: Thomas Hardy Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
NEUTRAL TONES by: Thomas Hardy
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, --
They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….
Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
THE DARKLING THRUSH by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
I LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seem'd to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Analysis: AT CASTLE BOTEREL
---Olivia Tomsick--- “At Castle Boterel” is a poem about a moment Thomas Hardy is recalling from his courtship with his wife Emma. He is describing a moment when he and his wife were on a trip to Castle Boterel and they shared a moment when he was helping her out of the carriage. Two main themes throughout this poem are the passage of time and romanticism. Hardy also uses rhetorical questions in this poem and this is very characteristic of Hardy’s writing style as he questions many mysteries in life. In this poem though, Thomas Hardy is criticized because his wife, Emma, is portrayed as more of a vision rather than a memory. On the other hand, critics themselves argue about having missed the true meaning of the word “passed” in this poem. Some critics feel strongly that the use of the word “passed” means that the lovers vanished while other critics feel that it simply implies that their love has diminished. Bath, Michael. "Thomas Hardy/ A Commentary on the Poems of Thomas Hardy." Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
The Voice
---Jennifer Sloat---
Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Voice” was written out of regret toward the death of his first wife, Emma Gifford. Thomas had divided himself from her, living separate lives while married. Her loss had taken an unexpected effect on Thomas, filling him with regret toward how much he missed her. Hardy used love lyrics throughout the poem which had shown the obvious regret he had. He is criticized for not admitting the error of his estrangement by asking for a second chance. Instead, he admits that they were no longer in love and is left to feel guilty. In this poem, Thomas uses rhymes that are trisyllabic and he uses a precise and accurate sense of style. “The voice” illustrates Hardy imagining that Emma is calling him, but then fades away, leaving Thomas in hardship. O'Rourke, Meghan. "When Our Day Was Fair." POETRY 189.5 (2007): 390. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
Neutral Tones
Colleen Ziemba
In this poem, the speaker is recalling the moment where he and his lover realize that they no longer love each other, but it is a mutual feeling. The use of imagery in the poem add to the fact that the end of their relationship is mutual. Colors such as white and grey, and colors of things found in nature such as sod reflect the image of neutral tones, shades of colors found only in nature. The end of the couple's relationship is symbolized by death imagery in the poem, such as winter and grayish leaves turned into ashes.
In this poem, Hardy uses one of his writing techniques in which he applies two different planes of time, one is the memory of his breakup, and the other the moment in which he is thinking about the memory. Hardy emphasizes that the action he took then was neutral and somewhat numb, but while looking back on his choice he is able to think more clearly about what happened.
Miller, Susan M. "Thomas Hardy and the Impersonal Lyric." Journal of Modern Literature 30.3 (Winter 2007): 95-115. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Vol. 92. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.
"The Darkling Thrush"
~Erin Macuga~
Thomas Hardy's poem, "The Darkling Thrush", is about seeing the hope and goodness on a dull, dreary, winter day. It shows that even the bird discussed in the poem, was able to sing and bring about happiness and joy to other people who are feeling depressed or down. This poem follows the tradition of romantic poetry by relating a landscape and its emotional effects that it can have and be displayed by another person. Some critics say that Siegfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man" counterpoints Hardy's poem. Others say that his lyrics are broken. "The Darkling Thrush" displays changes in attitude by realizing that there is joy and hope in everything, including a bird's song.
Clausson, Nils. "Sassoon's Prose Trench Lyric and the Romantic Tradition: The Ending of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man." War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities; 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1/2, p165-172, 8p Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.
Thomas Hardy
Biography:
Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, in England. He was the first of four children, born to Jemina and Thomas Hardy. Thomas was close to his younger siblings, Mary, Kate, and Henry. His father was a stonemason, builder, and church musician. His mother was an embroiderer and skilled cook. He attended church with his family, went to school to study Latin, French, Greek, and classical literature, he learned to play the violin, and was a voracious reader. He assisted his father with building projects, and at the age of sixteen was taken on as an apprentice to an architect in Dorchester, named John Hicks. However, instead of learning how to build, John Hicks allowed him to study Greek more than he studied architecture, and for that reason, his father sent him to study with Sir Arthur Bloomfield in 1862. Again, he allowed Hardy to study poetry and literature while teaching him how to be a good architecture. Hardy stayed with him until 1867, when he began to work as a full-fledged architecture. In 1874, he married Sir Arthur Bloomfield’s niece, Emma Lavinia Gifford. After a series of hemorrhages which kept him bedridden for 6 months he and his wife moved to Dorchester because of his illness. They lived there for two years before he built his last architectural structure, their (famous) house called Max Gate. His wife died in 1912, and remarried his secretary in 1914, at the age of 74. He died on January 11, 1928, of a cold. When he died, his heart was removed and placed near his first wife’s grave, and the rest of his body was cremated and buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.
His first story, “How I Built Myself A House,” was published in 1865, in the Chamber’s Journal. In 1868, he wrote his first novel The Poor Man and the Lady , which was never published. Between the years 1872-1922, he wrote many literary works including, A Pair of Blue Eyes , Tess of the d’Urberville, Far From the Maddening Crowd, Winter Words, Human Shows, Moments of Vision, and Two on a Tower. His achievements include receiving the Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects for his essay “On the Application of Colored Bricks and Terra Cotta in Modern Architecture.” Two of his books, Far from the Maddening Crowd and Tess of the d’Urbervilles , were voted among the 100 best-loved novels by British public as part of the BBC “Big Read,” in 2003.
Kunitz, Stanley, ed. "Hardy, Thomas." Biography Reference Bank . The H.W. Wilson Company. Web. 30 Mar. 2010. http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/results/getResults.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.33 .
Morgan, Rosemarie. "TTHA: Bibliography." Yale University . Web. 30 Mar. 2010. < http://www.yale.edu/hardysoc/Bibliography/bibliogr.htm >.
"Thomas Hardy." Authors and Artists for Young Adults . Vol. 69. Thomson Gale, 2006.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center . Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010. http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.cpl.org/servlet/BioRC
"Thomas Hardy - Biography and Works." The Literature Network: Online Classic Literature, Poems, and Quotes. Essays & Summaries . 2000-2010. Web. 30 Mar. 2010. http://www.online-literature.com/hardy/ .
Poet's writing Style:
Thomas Hardy is known as the last Victorian. He is assumed to be a regionalist, a romantic, foremost a realist, and a brilliant but flawed poet. His writing style and personal philosophy are considered to be unique, exciting, and resistant. Over sixty years of his life, he has had an output of poems, short stories, essays, biographies, and novels. Literary critics and scholars have criticized him for inconsistencies in his writing style and artistic vision. The mix of sensational, irrational, and melodramatic elements along with realism leads to Hardy’s Victorian Gothic style. In Hardy’s lifetime the term Gothic was used as a reference to the architecture, which was an artistic work inspired by the Middle Ages. His styles enable readers to sympathize with character plights, accept more readily the plot, and understand Hardy’s narrative patterns. His Victorian Gothic works include discussions of problems such as urbanization, economic injustice, and technology. His poetry holds such issues as homelessness and disaster. Hardy showed human existence as a tragedy determined by powers beyond our control. A common theme in Hardy’s poetry is his realization and regret of turning away from the most important things in life. The tone is of deep regret with a blunt and straightforward style. He was realist who simply spoke about man’s senselessness. Overall, Thomas Hardy is considered to be one of England’s greatest novelists whose work resembles a Victorian Gothic style.
Goldstein, Norma Walrath. "Thomas Hardy's Victorian Gothic: Reassessing Hardy's Fiction and His Gothic Sensibility." Diss. University of Rhode Island, 1989. Abstract. (1989): 171. ERIC . Web. 25 Mar. 2010.
"Thomas Hardy Criticism." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 01 Apr. 2010. < http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/hardy-thomas >.
Poems:
AT CASTLE BOTEREL
By: Thomas Hardy
As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Distinctly yet
Myself and a girlish form benighted
In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
To ease the sturdy pony's load
When he sighed and slowed.
What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Matters not much, nor to what it led, -
Something that life will not be balked of
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
And feeling fled.
It filled but a minute. But was there ever
A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill's story? To one mind never,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
By thousands more.
Primaeval rocks form the road's steep border,
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth's long order;
But what they record in colour and cast
Is - that we two passed.
And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
Remains on the slope, as when that night
Saw us alight.
I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
And I shall traverse old love's domain
Never again.
THE VOICE
by: Thomas Hardy
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.
Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!
Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
NEUTRAL TONES
by: Thomas Hardy
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod, --
They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….
Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
THE DARKLING THRUSH
by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
I LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seem'd to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Poetry Archive | Poems. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. < http://poetry-archive.com/ >.
Analysis:
AT CASTLE BOTEREL
---Olivia Tomsick---
“At Castle Boterel” is a poem about a moment Thomas Hardy is recalling from his courtship with his wife Emma. He is describing a moment when he and his wife were on a trip to Castle Boterel and they shared a moment when he was helping her out of the carriage. Two main themes throughout this poem are the passage of time and romanticism. Hardy also uses rhetorical questions in this poem and this is very characteristic of Hardy’s writing style as he questions many mysteries in life. In this poem though, Thomas Hardy is criticized because his wife, Emma, is portrayed as more of a vision rather than a memory. On the other hand, critics themselves argue about having missed the true meaning of the word “passed” in this poem. Some critics feel strongly that the use of the word “passed” means that the lovers vanished while other critics feel that it simply implies that their love has diminished.
Bath, Michael. "Thomas Hardy/ A Commentary on the Poems of Thomas Hardy." Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
The Voice
---Jennifer Sloat---
Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Voice” was written out of regret toward the death of his first wife, Emma Gifford. Thomas had divided himself from her, living separate lives while married. Her loss had taken an unexpected effect on Thomas, filling him with regret toward how much he missed her. Hardy used love lyrics throughout the poem which had shown the obvious regret he had. He is criticized for not admitting the error of his estrangement by asking for a second chance. Instead, he admits that they were no longer in love and is left to feel guilty. In this poem, Thomas uses rhymes that are trisyllabic and he uses a precise and accurate sense of style. “The voice” illustrates Hardy imagining that Emma is calling him, but then fades away, leaving Thomas in hardship.
O'Rourke, Meghan. "When Our Day Was Fair." POETRY 189.5 (2007): 390. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.
Neutral Tones
Colleen Ziemba
In this poem, the speaker is recalling the moment where he and his lover realize that they no longer love each other, but it is a mutual feeling. The use of imagery in the poem add to the fact that the end of their relationship is mutual. Colors such as white and grey, and colors of things found in nature such as sod reflect the image of neutral tones, shades of colors found only in nature. The end of the couple's relationship is symbolized by death imagery in the poem, such as winter and grayish leaves turned into ashes.
In this poem, Hardy uses one of his writing techniques in which he applies two different planes of time, one is the memory of his breakup, and the other the moment in which he is thinking about the memory. Hardy emphasizes that the action he took then was neutral and somewhat numb, but while looking back on his choice he is able to think more clearly about what happened.
Miller, Susan M. "Thomas Hardy and the Impersonal Lyric." Journal of Modern Literature 30.3 (Winter 2007): 95-115. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Vol. 92. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.
"The Darkling Thrush"
~Erin Macuga~
Thomas Hardy's poem, "The Darkling Thrush", is about seeing the hope and goodness on a dull, dreary, winter day. It shows that even the bird discussed in the poem, was able to sing and bring about happiness and joy to other people who are feeling depressed or down. This poem follows the tradition of romantic poetry by relating a landscape and its emotional effects that it can have and be displayed by another person. Some critics say that Siegfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man" counterpoints Hardy's poem. Others say that his lyrics are broken. "The Darkling Thrush" displays changes in attitude by realizing that there is joy and hope in everything, including a bird's song.
Clausson, Nils. "Sassoon's Prose Trench Lyric and the Romantic Tradition: The Ending of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man." War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities; 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1/2, p165-172, 8p Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.